The new cultivar is the product of a planned breeding program under the direction of the inventors, David Kerley, Priscilla Kerley and Timothy Kerley, all citizens of the United Kingdom. The objective of the breeding program was to produce new trailing Viola×wittrockiana cultivars for commercial ornamental purposes. The new cultivar resulted from an open pollination crossing the unpatented proprietary seed parent, referred to as ‘05-32-1’ and unknown proprietary pollen varieties. The exact date of the cross resulting in ‘KERVIOPRISE’ is unknown, but most likely during 2005. The selection of the new variety ‘Kervioprise’ was made in April 2006, by the inventors at a research greenhouse located in Cambridge, UK.
Asexual reproduction of the new cultivar ‘KERVIOPRISE’ by vegetative cuttings was first performed at the same research greenhouse in Cambridge, UK in July of 2006, and has shown that the unique features of this cultivar are stable and reproduced true to type in successive generations.